The lights go down, the cameras are rolling and the stage is set. The three men before you are making a movie and you get to watch as they battle through all the barriers in their way. | "You may have watched movies before, but you certainly haven't seen them like this." | | Annabel Jones |
Unfortunately for them, the three men all have different goals. The scriptwriter's intention is to send out a message and create a story with real meaning. The director, on the other hand just wants to be rich. And the film's trust-fund-kid star, picked more for his ability to help with funding rather than for his acting talent, is determined to look good, strike it big and win the Oscar. Obviously the road to success isn't going to be a smooth one. In order to settle some of their disputes the group look back through movie history, from silent films to Star Wars, for inspiration. On their way, they also learn to recognise some things that make bad films, and proceed to lampoon the perpetrators of continuity errors, melodramatic acting and dodgy special effects that have littered Hollywood鈥檚 history. However, they also pay homage to some of the most successful films of all time, with hilarious spoofs of The Matrix, James Bond and The Wizard of Oz, to name but a few. The Reduced Shakespeare Company has managed to create a highly amusing, if rather jumbled, portrait of the film industry. Right up until the bizarre attempt at the traditional happy-ever-after ending, it's guaranteed to keep the whole family quiet, whether they remembered to bring pop corn or not. You may have watched movies before, but you certainly haven't seen them like this. |
